


Follow When I Go

by teacup_tyrant



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Eventual Fluff, F/M, Minor Character Death, kaz still hates fortune tellers, they give him the spooks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29367783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacup_tyrant/pseuds/teacup_tyrant
Summary: When Inej receives bad news from home, Kaz follows her to Ravka. What's a Kerch boy to do among the Suli? Featuring wire walkers, fortune tellers, and unexpected gifts.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 58
Kudos: 140
Collections: Kaz and Inej Fanfics





	1. Letters

The letter arrived while Inej was at sea.

Having no proper address and no way to receive letters while away on a voyage, any communication directed to Inej usually ended up at the Slat or the Crow Club. Kaz recognized the hand well enough by now to know that it was from Inej's father.

The second letter arrived a week and a half later.

It was very odd for another letter to arrive so soon. Mail from Ravka wasn't exactly reliable and even less so from Suli encampments.

It made Kaz very curious and slightly suspicious. Had the letter been addressed to anyone else, Kaz would have torn it open to read it himself. He would have had one of his forgers rewrite the address on a new envelope to seal the content back in. But not only did Kaz respect Inej, he respected her father as well. So it too went into the vault, directly below the first envelope.

Another week later and The Wraith finally made berth once more.

Kaz waited patiently for Inej's eventual appearance after the runner from Fifth Harbor brought him the news. He would usually carry on with his own business, trying his best to focus on his work and not let Inej consume his thoughts completely. But once she had set foot on Kerch's dry land after months at sea, it was extremely hard not to. She would show up when she wanted to. Much of the time, she had freed girls and boys, and women and men to deliver to their respective country's embassies and slaver scum to hand over to the Stadwatch. Kaz wasn't such a fool to consider himself her first priority.

But this time was different. Something about the sequence of the letters struck an alarm bell in his head, so he send the runner right back to the harbor to request her immediate presence at the Slat.

“You've had two letters,” he said in lieu of a greeting when she finally appeared in his doorway around an hour later.

Inej rolled her eyes at the cold reception. “Hello to you, too, Kaz.”

“They're both from your father.”

Inej eyed the envelopes warily. They were laying face up and unopened at the edge of Kaz's desk. It wasn't the first time she returned to letters from her parents, so why the urgency?

“They arrived one after the other over a week ago,” Kaz explained. He blew out a short breath. “I don't know. It seemed strange to me that they were sent that way. I thought you should read them as soon as possible.”

Inej raised an eyebrow.

“Just do it. You can call me a podge afterwards if everything is fine.”

Unfortunately, Kaz's hunches were rarely wrong, so Inej picked up the letters and sat down in the chair opposite the desk to read.

Kaz watched with growing unease as Inej's eyes skimmed across the paper, slowly at first and then more frantically as she neared the bottom of the page.

“My mother has been ill,” she murmured, dropping the first letter into her lap and tearing into the next. Her eyes scanned the paper quickly, reading as fast as she could.

“She's gotten worse. My father says she won't stop coughing. Kaz-” her hands began to tremble so she reached to Kaz for stability. He took her hand in both of his own as she continued reading. “He thinks I should come home to Ravka. But these letters were posted weeks ago! What if she's already...” Inej's breath caught in her throat and her eyes began to well up with tears.

“You don't know that,” Kaz said, rising and circling around the desk to her side. He tried to ground her with a steady grasp on her shaking elbows.

“I shouldn't have been away for so long,” she went on. “If I had come back to Ketterdam sooner-”

“ _You don't know that,”_ Kaz repeated. “She might already be recovered by now and you're worrying about nothing.”

It was wishful thinking. Kaz knew logic was never a source of comfort but he had no other words to give.

“The Suli don't have good doctors for things like this. This kind of illness kills people every year. I've seen it happen before in the caravan.” Inej seemed to be staring straight through him. “I need to get to them.”

“Yes. You do.” He knew Inej was strong, but right now she needed a goal and a distraction. “Go back to the harbor and start making arrangements for departure. If your crew is already on leave, I'll find sailors for you. One of our shipments of jurda came in yesterday. Take as many deckhands as you need from their crew. Send your cook to the market and restock your water supplies. Don't worry about anything else.”

Inej let the orders wash over her, glad for Kaz's levelheadedness. She looked down at the way he was holding onto her, supporting her, and sighed. She was finally back in Ketterdam after being away for so long, back with Kaz, and now this.

“I almost wish you were coming with me,” she said softly.

He couldn't. He had business to take care of in Ketterdam. And besides, Kaz wasn't good at bedside manners and he wasn't good at comforting. Inej needed to be with her family, her _real_ family. He'd just be in the way. If Inej's mother really was as ill as the letter made her out to be... then the family would all be gathered together and Kaz would feel like an unwelcome intruder. What did he know about Suli customs anyway? They were a private people and generally didn't welcome outsiders into their communities. No, he was better off staying far away from all that.

And yet...

He thought about her words for the rest of the day. He thought about them after Inej departed at first light the next morning. And he spend the remainder of the day thinking about them.

She had said _almost_. So she didn't actually mean it? If she had wanted him to come with her, why hadn't she just asked him outright? She probably assumed that he would say no, so she didn't even bother. But leaving the invitation so vague just left Kaz to ponder the true meaning of her words in his head over and over again.

By evening, he had made next to no progress on the ledger sitting on his desk before finally slamming the book shut. Then he threw some clothes into a case and headed directly for Third Harbor to find a passenger ship.

 _Stupid_ , he chided himself. She said she wanted him to go with her, so why hadn't he listened? The Dregs and his business had always come first. But this time, it was different. Inej needed her family and he _was_ her family. She had told him that many times now, hadn't she? So she needed _him_ right now, too. He had just been too dense to see it.

Passenger ships ran much slower than Inej's speedy warship, so he knew he was already days behind her. Would he even be able to find her once he arrived in Ravka? Autumn was the beginning of the Suli's off-season, since the citizens of the rural villages they usually visited would be focused on their work in the fields this time of year. But Suli encampments were rarely permanent and were even more rare to find on an actual map. Hopefully he'd be able to locate what remained of The Wraith's crew once his own sluggish ship docked in Os Kervo and get any clues about her heading from them.

It took him an extra day of searching and one very drunk Specht deep in his fourth tankard of kvass in an Os Kervo bar, but he managed to get a heading and secure a lucky spot on a coach heading inland. The journey was bumpy and uncomfortable, but he managed to keep his patience all the while being jostled between a burly Ravkan goat herder and an elderly woman who chattered nonstop about her grandchildren. Three long days later, he found himself walking down a dusty lane towards one of the only permanent Suli settlements in Ravka. He sent a few children running from the severe look of his out-of-place sharply tailored coat. But they had obviously gone running to the right place, because moments later, someone was sprinting towards him - someone with a long braid snaking from side to side behind her as she ran.

Inej barreled into Kaz with the force of a Fjerdan tank.

He was used to a certain amount of contact after the last five years with Inej, but it always took him a little bit of time to get used to it again every time she returned to Ketterdam. This time, baby steps were all forgotten when Inej threw her hands around his neck and clung to him, beginning to sob into his coat lapel. All thoughts of whether he had been right to follow her to Ravka vanished.

“You're really here?” She choked out between ragged breaths.

“As you see me,” he responded, dropping his traveling case in the dirt so he could hold her as close as she needed to be.

“Sorry!” she suddenly gasped, jumping back away from him. “I shouldn't have-”

“It's ok,” he murmured, drawing her back in again as her sobs began to slow. From Inej's reaction he knew that her mother was gone. If Mrs. Ghafa were alive and well, there would be no need for tears. She didn't have to say anything at all. “Did you get to see her?”

Inej nodded against his shoulder. “I think she must have been waiting for me. It wasn't long after I arrived... but I'm happy I got to see her before the end.”

“Good. That's something at least.”

“I'll take you to see her. This village is one of the only places where the Suli have their own church and where prayers are said in our own language. The cemetery is there.”

 _No mourners,_ they had always said. This was different. The rules didn't always apply.

They started towards the village together and Kaz realized, to his great relief, that he had been right in following Inej home to Ravka.


	2. Gravestones

The small church and the adjacent graveyard stood a little away from the little village near a copse of trees. It had the look of a typical Ravkan church dedicated to the saints, but on a much less grand scale. Those lavish churches were covered in multiple domes, all stretching up in levels to the sky. This church only had one. It was covered in gold paint and still glinted in the autumn sun, but on closer inspection, Kaz noticed that pieces were beginning to flake off near the edge of the roof. The portraits of the saints that were painted on each side of the main door were fading from the sun. The church had seen better days. But the well-worn path to the thick, wooden doors showed that it was still loved, still important to the worshipers, despite its aging appearance.

The cemetery was much different than the ones in Ketterdam. Instead of giant stone monuments and family mausoleums, each family had their own little plot of land surrounded by a low iron fence. Knee-high, thin stones dotted across the small graveyard. Some stood tall, some crooked from the hidden, sprawling roots of ancient trees. They reminded Kaz of the lopsided, leaning houses of the Barrel.

Inej sat cross-legged next to her mother's gravestone. The ground in front of was freshly disturbed, the telltale sign of a recent death. A few bouquets of flowers lay at the marker's base. The petals were already starting to fade in color and grow withered at the tips. Only a bunch of wild geraniums, placed in a vase full of water, looked vibrant and bright.

Kaz stood behind her, leaning on his cane. He didn't enter the plot with Inej, feeling slightly like an intruder. Just standing next to it felt close enough to pay his respects.

He had liked Inej's mother. She doted on her daughter the way mothers should, with love in their eyes and comfort in their embrace. When together, the Ghafa family had been like one out of a DeKappel portrait. There had been no squabbling over petty disagreements or long-held grudges. At least, not that Kaz knew of. Families like that were rare. At least, they were rare the Barrel.

Staring at the gravestone, he realized with a jolt that the last _real_ funeral he had attended had been his own father's. He had known plenty of people who had died over the years. He had also been the cause of an alarmingly high number of deaths. But death happened and that was the end of it. Nothing ever came after. Not for him, anyway. There were no flowers or cards of sympathy. There was just an absence that gradually faded from memory.

He had no words of comfort to offer about the love of a mother or the importance of being close to family when dealing with a loss. His own mother had died before he had even been capable of forming memories. At this moment, he could truly not relate to anything Inej was feeling. So he asked after her father instead.

“Is he doing alright?”

“As well as he can be,” Inej responded. “I think it helps that he's not traveling with the caravan right now and that he's here with the community.”

“And that you're here with him.”

“That too,” she nodded. She did not add any wishes that she could have spent more time with her mother before she passed. That was already understood. Wishing to change the past was pointless.

“And you?” Kaz asked after a few moments.

Inej sighed and brushed a fallen leaf from her knee. “I'm alright. I'm happy that I got to see her. I'm happy that I can be with my father at this time.”

She was trying her best to look on the bright side and be thankful for the things she had, not the things she had lost.

“...but I'll miss the orange cakes she used to make every winter. I'll miss the way she used to braid my hair before I went to sleep so I wouldn't wake up with a tangled mess.” She smiled wistfully and spun the end of her braid around her finger. “I can never get it just right in the back like she could.”

Kaz eyed her braid from his stance behind her. It looked fine to him. But that was not what Inej needed to hear. She had always been much more sentimental than him. So he said nothing.

She sighed. “They were inseparable, my parents.”

“I remember.”

Kaz had hardly seen Inej's parents apart for one moment in the few weeks they had been in Ketterdam. They took their meals together, had laughed at the ridiculousness of the Komedie Brute together, walked hand in hand down the Staves together. One day, they had stopped to observe the acrobats who performed next to the canals. Mrs. Ghafa had applauded the artists and had laughed when one of them pulled her into their act. She was instructed to hold a hoop for the acrobats to jump and flip through. All the while, she was joyful and played along. Kaz knew she could have upstaged the entire troupe in a second if she had wanted to, but she never let anything besides perfect posture be a tell for her own skills.

_Quite opposite of himself and Inej,_ Kaz thought gloomily. Being separated was the only constant in their lives ever since the day she had departed aboard The Wraith. He didn't regret it. Neither did she. It was the life they had chosen.

“What will your father do now? Continue living with the caravan?”

“Maybe,” Inej speculated. “Maybe not. He's getting older now. All the training and performances are hard on the body. Not to mention the constant traveling. It isn't an easy life.”

“No,” Kaz agreed. “But who would want that?”

Inej shot him a sideways grin. She caught his subtle jibe at her own lifestyle of constant travel. Like many of the Suli, she hadn't exactly set down permanent roots yet either. Ketterdam was one of her homes. So was her ship. So was Ravka. Who said you needed to only have one true home? She had many.

“Let's go back,” Inej decided, unfolding herself off the ground and standing up. She slid a hand across the top of the stone in a farewell, then stepped over the scrolled fence to Kaz's side. “Are you staying long? Here in Ravka, I mean.”

“For as long as you'll have me,” Kaz confirmed.

It wasn't ideal. He'd had meetings with new investors for his property on the Lid planned for this week. The jurda shipment that had just arrived needed to be counted, repacked, and distributed. He was usually the one to oversee it but he'd left it all to Pim. That was just the way it had to be. He was needed elsewhere. The rest of the gang would have to manage without him for a while. If he was honest with himself, his second and third-in-commands were more than capable.

“Then I'll have you forever.”

Kaz knew it was just a joke, but he felt his heart squeeze at her words anyway. “That might be too long.”

Inej grinned and looked away, face slightly flushed.

“Will your father mind?”

“Oh no, he'll welcome the distraction. You'll be the talk of the town. They don't have outsiders visiting here too often.”

“Fantastic,” Kaz said dryly.

“He likes you, you know.”

“I can't imagine why.”

“Because you like me.”

“Well.” He was running out of clever responses to Inej's unintentional flattery. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought she was flirting with him. There was no better way to coerce him into a stony silence.

“Come on.” Inej reached for his hand and they began picking their way around through the graveyard's off-kilter path back to the main road.

Kaz let himself be lead back to the village, noticing the staring faces of passersby, all the while wondering about what the Suli must be thinking about this strange, foreign man from Kerch. He couldn't blame them. Even the Kerch found him strange. He didn't care. As long as Inej tolerated him, he'd endure the gaping glances of nearly anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is kind of a downer. We'll get more upbeat from here and back to our regularly scheduled fluff soon, okay? Okay. Next one will feature fortune tellers, oh boy.
> 
> Chapter song: “Give Thanks” – War & Peace soundtrack (2016 miniseries)


	3. Fortunes

The children of the Suli village were absolutely fascinated by Kaz. They had never seen anyone like him before in all their travels across Ravka. He dressed differently, spoke differently, and certainly walked differently. 

He'd seen them peering out of the back of wagons at him, or they'd trail behind him and Inej as they walked through the village, hoping not to be noticed. They were like the stray dogs in the Barrel; the more you wanted to be rid of them, the closer they followed you around.

“They're very curious about you,” Inej said as they were strolling around the small settlement one day, sharing a bag of roasted chestnuts. A few of the children from the village were playing a game Kaz had never seen before involving sticks and a rounded, flattened stone disk. They stopped their game to stare as the two walked by. A small girl who had been hiding behind her brother's legs suddenly puffed out her chest and bolted out to meet them.

“My brother says you're a Kerch spy, but I don't think you are,” she said in a rush, without any greeting or introduction. She planted her feet bravely and pointed at Kaz. “He says it's because you wear a suit all the time and your pockets are filled with guns and bad things!”

Inej stifled a giggle and glanced at Kaz.

Kaz planted his cane and crouched down in front of the girl. “I am from Kerch,” he admitted solemnly.

The girl gasped and jumped back in fear.

“-But I'm not a spy.”

“Ohhh,” she exhaled. “I knew it!”

“Do you know what I do have in my pocket?”

She shook her head. 

Without even reaching into any of his suit's many pockets, Kaz produced one of the chestnuts from the bag he and Inej had been sharing. He held it out to her, but it jumped from his left hand to his right, as if by magic. The girl squealed in delight and grabbed at it as it shifted between his hands again. Kaz steadied the chestnut between his fingers and placed it into her waiting palm. He was rewarded with an earsplitting grin. Then he placed another into her hand.

“Share with your brother.”

“Thanks!” She turned on her heel and ran back to her waiting brother. 

Kaz stood back up to a grinning Inej, whom he ignored. They fell back into step, heading back to her home. A moment later, Kaz felt a tug on the back of his coat and turned to find the little girl again. She was panting a little from running to catch up to them.

“Will you both come to the fire tonight?” She asked, looking from Kaz to Inej. “My grandmother will be there!”

“Baba Yakhina?” Inej asked curiously.

“Yep!” The girl nodded happily, slipping into her more native Suli tongue as she spoke more specifically to Inej. “She just got back yesterday from the carnivals at Tsovkra! All the carnivals want her for their fortune telling tent but she doesn't like to travel as much anymore. She'll be here for the whole winter now and she can tell anyone's fortune after they drink tea from her samovar!”

Kaz hadn't been able to follow the girl's chatter as she became more and more animated while talking to Inej, but he was able to pick out one word: the Suli word for fortune teller. 

“We'll come,” Inej said, to the girl's delight. “Kaz loves fortune tellers.”

Now Kaz knew what they were talking about and he didn't like it one bit. The girl ran off back to her brother for the second time and Kaz watched her with narrowed eyes. “What's this about fortune tellers?”

“Her grandmother is a famous one,” Inej explained and they continued their walk back to the village. “I've only seen her a few times when I was younger since she traveled with a different caravan. But I know of her. She's supposed to be very good. She's back for the winter.”

Kaz raised an eyebrow skeptically.

“Yes, I know how you feel about fortune tellers,” Inej glancing sidelong at him. “But she isn't some cheap entertainer on the Staves.”

“And yet I trust her craft exactly the same amount.”

“Well, just humor them. Just for tonight. You don't have to believe what she says.”

Kaz snorted.

“Just pretend like you're listening and try not to insult her too much.”

“I would never,” Kaz said, deadpanned. 

-

Kaz did not believe in Suli fortune tellers. 

At least, not the ones that he saw on the Staves. But Inej had dismissed those just as easily as he had. This fortune teller seated across the fire from him, well, he wasn't so certain about her. Baba Yakhina absolutely had the look of someone who had lived long enough to make accurate predictions. But then again, so did the old woman who sat on the corner of Nemstraat swindling tourists out of their kruge daily and went by the name “Noor the All-Knowing.”

Kaz was normally not the type of person to be bullied into anything, but he had never been surrounded by multiple generations of Suli families staring at him expectantly. At least Inej's father wasn't present at the fire this night, or he would be even more intimidated. Better to bite the bullet and let Inej tease him about it later. He schooled his features into an interested expression (though he was very, very not interested) and handed over his cup.

“No, no, boy,” the old woman chided, refusing to take the cup he offered. “You must prepare the cup yourself first. Flip it over on the saucer and turn the cup three times using your left hand. Only then can I read it for you. Your fortune lies within the dregs of the tea.”

“Within the dregs,” Kaz repeated, trying his best to keep the mocking amusement out of his voice. He shared a quick glace with Inej, who had also twitched at Baba Yakhina's choice of words, before following the woman's instructions. He already knew that his fortune had been found with the Dregs and he didn't need the supposed all-encompassing wisdom of an aged diviner to tell him that. 

He took the cup and saucer back. Instead of flicking the handle to send it spinning madly in a circle like he wanted, he turned it slowly and 'with intention,' as one of the onlookers suggested. Whatever that meant. He could feel the eyes of everyone circling the fire upon him. After the cup was turned, he righted it back on the saucer. The inside looked like nothing but a pile of soggy tea leaves to him. He impulsively wanted to chuck them straight into the flames, but instead he handed them back around the fire to Baba Yakhina. 

She fixed him with a calculating stare before shifting her gaze to the teacup. Kaz didn't like that look. It was one he used regularly when he was sizing up an opponent. He wanted to challenge her back, but what had Inej instructed him to do? To pretend like he was paying attention?

“The plow.” Baba Yakhina stated.

And just like that, she had his attention.

“But you already know that, don't you? The plow is in the past,” she waved her hand at a portion of the cup that he couldn't see. “The plow brought you struggles, lead to dark times ahead. But that is all passed now.”

His thoughts immediately went back to his childhood. Kaz had never even told Inej how his father had died, just that it had been an accident on the farm. His eyes narrowed slightly. Surely that was just a coincidence. 

The old woman hunched over the cup again and the orange glow of the flames danced shadows across her wrinkled brow. 

“Hmm, I see wings. Yes, a bird-”

“What kind of bird?” Asked an eager young woman seated at Baba Yakhina's knee. “An albatross?”

“Bad luck at sea,” a woman at her other side recited, and many of the spectators glanced at Inej in alarm. 

“No, no, a swan for romance,” another behind her shoulder insisted with a suggestive giggle.

“Or maybe-”

“A raven,” Baba Yakhina said decidedly, silencing the others, and shooing them away from blocking her light. “Maybe a crow.”

Kaz swallowed uncomfortably. 

This was not turning out the way he expected at all. He had expected the old woman to hum and haw over the cup and pronounce that he would be taking a long journey to a faraway land. Maybe throw in something about meeting a lovely girl so Inej's relatives would chuckle and pry about the boy who traveled all the way from distant Kerch to see her. But this reading... was beginning to divulge a bit more of his personal history than he was comfortable sharing with anyone. 

“Bad news,” she continued and held up a finger. “But a bird in your cup brings news of all kinds. The crow brings warnings. It can be good or bad, depending on how you choose to listen. Yes, it all depends on how you react. You can always change your fortune, you know.”

Her gaze dropped again.

“Oh!” She pointed to a collection of tea leaf bits in the cup. “Coins! Many coins! So you are a rich man, are you?”

She laughed and Kaz's insides squirmed. They were just stupid, ordinary tea leaves! Of course the rounder pieces would look like coins! Or maybe rocks. Or bubbles. Or round waffles like from his favorite cafe. How could this woman know that he-

“One more thing...” she squinted at the leaves, trying to grasp at the remaining shapes. 

Kaz wished she would stop. 

“This has been very clear, though it lies far in the future.” 

Her captivated audience leaned forward expectantly, waiting for the profound conclusion.

“Yes, this circle of leaves here. Perhaps a ring. It means a successful conclusion. It doesn't always mean marriage,” she wagged her finger at the girls who had started giggling at her knee and nodded across the fire to Inej, who blushed. “But closure to a long project. A successful union. Hm, for all the bad omens your cup started out with, my boy, your future does show a happy ending.”

And with that, Baba Yakhina leaned back in her chair, signaling that the reading was finished. One of the young women at her side handed the cursed cup back to Kaz with a toothy grin. He didn't return the smile, forgetting Inej's instructions of 'acting interested' and 'humoring them.' He didn't have any humor left at the moment. The attention finally shifted off of him and he was glad the whole ordeal was over.

“Do mine next, Baba!” The little girl from earlier cried, tugging gently on the embroidered shawl draped around the fortune teller's shoulders.

“No, me! You promised!” Another insisted.

Kaz felt like he could finally breathe regularly again.

“Well?” Inej inquired, tipping her head sideways to look at him. The flames flickered in the reflection of her dark eyes. 

Half of him wanted to accuse her of telling his life story to the fortune teller earlier in the day, but he knew better than that. Inej knew many of his secrets and he trusted her with them implicitly. She was the last person who would play a trick on him like this. 

“I think it all made sense,” she continued on pensively. “Maybe not that first bit about the plow though.”

Kaz wanted to agree and cast doubt over the entire reading, but he just stared into the fire and gave a resigned sigh. “I never told you exactly how my father died, did I?

Inej blinked. “Was it something to do with a plow?”

Kaz nodded slowly.

She didn't answer and stared at the dancing flames for a long while, brows furrowing slightly. 

“Do you still think Suli fortune tellers are fakes now?” She finally asked smugly. 

Across the fire, Baba Yakhina began leaning over another teacup. 

Kaz avoided Inej's question purposefully. “Never make me do that again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *You guys should google Tsovkra. Tell me what they're famous for there. ;) 
> 
> Nothing makes me happier than things in the Grishaverse that have IRL cultural references. Or, you know, substituting my own that I think make sense. So if anyone is curious, I base anything to do with Suli culture around the Volgan Tatars, who are a Turkic ethnic group in Russia. (Yes, I think about these things. Probably too much.)
> 
> Song for this chapter is “Oh Dusya, My Marusya” by Otava Yo (Ой, Дуся, ой, Маруся - Отава Ё) because I wanted something Slav and folksy and this band slaps.


	4. Walkers

Kaz had been in Ravka for over a week now. It was possibly the longest time he had ever gone without stealing something. He wondered if his mind would become rusty if he didn't plan some kind of job soon.

Inej, too, had been feeling lazy. Sailing could be as demanding a job as crawling the buildings of the Barrel. With her small crew, pulling in sails and hoisting lines required all the hands they had available. It required different skills than the stealthy techniques spying required, but it still kept her on her toes. It certainly would take longer than a few weeks for her to lose her prowess, but she felt like she needed to do something to get her muscles firing again.

So when a few cousins that Inej had traveled with in the caravan asked her for some pointers on the high wire, she jumped at the chance. It had been some time since she had walked a wire, but after a few warm up passes, it came right back to her. When she was alone on the wire, focused on only her footwork and the ever-present pull of gravity, the rest of the world seemed to fade away. She had missed that feeling.

Her father had joined Kaz as the small, earth-bound audience for the wire-walkers, saying that he didn't want to miss a chance to see his brilliant daughter perform. The two men sat side by side with their heads trained upwards, watching the lesson unfold above them.

About 20 feet above them, Inej and three of her adoring younger cousins sat perched in a pine tree. The wire had been rigged between two sturdy trees and each pupil sat mesmerized on a thick branch, watching Inej with bated breath. She moved steadily, sliding one foot in front of the other along the wire, making it look as simple as if she were taking a leisurely Sunday afternoon stroll on the Staves. She made two passes, back and forth in complete silence. And as soon as she stepped off the wire, her cousins burst into praise, questions, and pleas for advice. Inej quieted their chatter and passed her balance pole to the next in line, focusing her attention on the younger girl's technique and offering suggestions when she could.

“I've watched her on the wire ever since she was a little girl,” Mr. Ghafa mused to Kaz, “and I still can never fully relax until she steps off of it.”

Kaz nodded silently in agreement. He had known Inej to perform even more remarkable feats, climbing up a burning incinerator shaft, for example, but he kept that knowledge to himself. Her father didn't know all the past dangers Kaz had put her in. The next girl had stepped out onto the wire and the men felt quiet again. Even though the wire was high above them and the girl was concentrating too hard to give her audience any thought, it felt wrong to talk while a walk was in progress. Or maybe it just seemed like bad luck.

“I have something for you, my boy.” Mr. Ghafa said, breaking their silence once she made it to the opposite platform and the girls above broke out into cheers. “I think you should have it. Well, for now. Ultimately, I want it going to-” he looked up back to the high wire, “someone else. I think you know who I mean.”

He produced something small, something very shiny, and placed it into Kaz's waiting hands.

For many moments, Kaz couldn't even speak. He just stared at the dainty ring that had been dropped into his bare hand, silently turning it over to inspect, focusing on the centerpiece of golden amber flanked by tiny pearls. Mr. Ghafa hadn't been present at the fire when Baba Yakhina had told his fortune. Inej might have mentioned to it to him, but somehow Kaz doubted it. Perhaps there really was some truth in the old woman's readings after all.

For all its simple beauty, the ring was not new. Kaz was no stranger to appraising fine jewelry and he could tell by the worn band, the slight scuffs on the fixtures of the stone, the few pearls that had begun to lose their brilliant shine. He'd seen the ring before and didn't need to ask to verify that the ring had belonged to Inej's mother. Her wedding ring. The significance of it nearly crushed him and for the first time in he couldn't even remember when, he felt himself clenching his jaw to hold back the emotion that was threatening to appear in his eyes.

“You don't need my permission,” Mr. Ghafa continued, “but just know that you have it.”

He had Mr. Ghafa's permission. His approval. Kaz always had a response or a witty quip ready for anything thrown at him. But this rendered him speechless for a long while.

“I don't want her to feel trapped,” Kaz finally spoke in a quiet voice. “Not ever again.”

He'd given most of the money he'd always hoarded so greedily to free her from any type of cage Inej had found herself in. From slavers. From contracts. From _him_ even, if that was what she wanted. This ring, this type of... _union_ had always scared him. He and Inej had danced around each other for years without even mentioning anything like _marriage._ It was a word for young sweethearts, meeting to hold hands when their parents weren't looking. For well-to-do parents forming important family alliances through their involuntary children. It wasn't a word for a lockpick thief and a silent spy.

But they had become so much more than that these past years. They had their own jobs and goals and yet... they constantly found themselves drawn back together. They always looked for each other. Waited for each other. And did an unhealthy amount of pining for each other while they were apart. It had been this way for years. Kaz didn't want Inej to feel bound to him. Inej didn't want to give up her life's calling and 'settle down.' Not for him, not for anyone. Kaz knew that. He respected it.

“I don't think she'd feel that way,” Mr. Ghafa said, glancing sidelong at Kaz. “Not if it's coming from you. She's told me much of what you've done for her. You've given her more freedom than any man on earth ever could. I think you understand her, Mr. Brekker, better than most people do. Probably even better than I do. I think you're possibly the only person who can give her the freedom and... also the sense of home that she needs.”

“Home,” Kaz echoed hollowly.

Mr. Ghafa smiled softy. “Ravka will always be her home, of course. The Suli will always be her people. But there are many types of home, you see. I believe you are her real home now.”

Kaz blew out a small breath of resigned acknowledgment. To think he could be so lucky. That Inej could even fathom to imagine a home with him. A permanent one.

“I'm... honored that you think so.”

“I know so,” Mr. Ghafa affirmed with a grin. He nodded towards the ring in Kaz's hand. “You keep that. Just give it to her one day. Maybe in a month, maybe a year, maybe ten years from now. Whenever you think it's the right time.”

High above them, Inej and her adoring pupils had finally finished their lesson. They waved down and took bows as if finishing a performance. Inej just grinned and began shooing them towards the ladder back down to solid ground.

Far below, Kaz slipped the amber ring into his pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to your weekly scheduled dose of fluff. >.< Why amber? BECAUSE IT'S SLAV. Why pearl? BECAUSE IT'S FROM THE SEA. Why am I yelling.
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter – Ayla Nereo's “Tightrope Walker.” (Haha, I had to. It's a really pretty song that has this kind of... chant-y word cadence going on. Listen to it.)
> 
> See you next Thursday, pals. It'll be the last chapter.


	5. Futures

Inej's mother's ring was a constant weight in Kaz's pocket over the next 10 months. He carried it with him always.

Who knew when it would be the right moment? Did it even matter? It mattered to some women, he knew, but Inej was her own breed. And was he even sure about giving it to her? Of course he was sure. After all, it was more rightfully hers that it was his, even if Mr. Ghafa had bequeathed it to him. But was the act of giving it to Inej supposed to mean something more? That was the question.

One evening, Inej was sitting on the windowsill of Kaz's attic in the Slat, feeding the crows. It was a scene that he had observed so many times over the years. They could have been 16 again, not the old souls they both already felt like at the ripe age of 23. Seeing her sitting there still gave him the same feeling that he had gotten on a similar afternoon years ago when he happened to gaze upon her perched on the sunlit windowsill and had felt the unfamiliar sensation of his stomach falling through the floor.

So much had changed. And so little had changed. Kaz took a deep breath. He was about to change it again.

“Inej, can you come here?”

“Hm?” She got up from the windowsill and dusted the breadcrumbs off her hands. The crows were always cawing and hungry around dusk. She was all too happy to oblige them with bits of bread crust leftover from her lunch. Feeding them from Kaz's old attic window always brought back a wave of nostalgia from simpler times.

“Here,” he tilted his head towards the bed where he sat perched at the end.

Inej floated over, ever the graceful acrobat, to join him at the foot of the bed. She drew one leg up and crossed the other in front of herself so one knee was touching Kaz's.

He took another deep breath and held out his hands for hers. She obliged, smiling, slipping her hands into his. The gesture was so familiar. It had always been their starting point. A small hurdle that Kaz could now cross with ease. He looked down at their joined hands, not trusting himself to look up into her coffee brown eyes sparkling in the fading sun of the evening, lest he lose his nerve.

“I have something for you,” he murmured.

It was then that Inej realized that Kaz's hands hadn't been empty. He had been holding something. Something small. And that something was now resting in her palm.

“This is...” she faltered, barely able to form words. The ring was slender and delicate, and the evening sun winked at her from the reflection of the rounded amber stone, flanked by tiny pearls. Her breath caught as she realized what exactly she was looking at. It wasn't just any ring, it was one that was familiar to her. She had seen it a hundred times before, had seen it every day of her childhood, sparkling from her mother's slender, tan hand.

“Kaz. Is this-?”

Kaz nodded slowly.

Inej used to reach out for the ring when she was a girl and her mother would laugh and put it on her tiny, child-sized finger. She used to hold it up to the sun to see through the golden-brown stone trying to find something secret hidden inside. The best amber in the world came from the Ravkan shores. She had heard the stories of ancient bugs and tiny sea creatures being encapsulated in the stones, trapped motionless for thousands of years. There were no much wonders in her mother's ring, but she looked again and again. It had still been beautiful to her young eyes.

“But-”

“Your father gave it to me,” Kaz explained quickly. The last thing he wanted her to think was that he hired some grunts for grave robbing. “In Ravka. When I was there with you.”

“You've had it all this time?”

He nodded again, still too nervous to say much. “He wanted you to have it. And I... I wanted it to mean something.”

“And my father had known since then. He'd known all along that you would...” she smiled softly, eyes beginning to grow misty. Kaz was still looking at her with that uncharacteristically hesitant face. It was one of the versions of him she loved the most. Suddenly, the confident Barrel boss would vanish, leaving behind a man who was less of a built-up legend and more of a vulnerable human. She counted herself lucky that she was one of the few people who ever got to see that side of him. No one would ever call Kaz Brekker _soft_ , but well, this was as close as he got.

“I imagined how to give it to you a million different ways,” he admitted. “Stupid, elaborate displays. You hear about grand gestures and fancy dinners and flowers and-”

She chuckled. “I'm glad you didn't do any of that. You don't need to. You know that, right? I don't need any of that. I just need-” she reached out for his hand again, “-you.”

He squeezed her hand. “This doesn't have to _change_ anything. You don't have to do anything. I mean-”

“Kaz,” Inej laughed incredulously, “this changes _a lot_ of things.”

“I don't want you to think-”

“I know,” she said quickly. She knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it. Kaz had never tried to tell her what to do, never tried to _own_ her. Hell, he hadn't even required her to take the Dreg's tattoo that every other member had been marked with. She had always arrived and departed from Ketterdam as she pleased, always following her own schedule. If that happened to overlap with Kaz's, then so much the better. He never dictated to her. Never insisted. She was fully her own person, just as he was. If they were better together... then that was just a perk of the freedom they had granted each other. But she had always been his. She had been his since long before that day on the docks when he had handed her her future.

“I know,” she repeated.

“You don't have to, you know... take my name or anything.”

Kaz really did not want her to take his name. He didn't want her to sign a document binding them together. They didn't require that formality. What purpose did it serve anyway, other than to make a union “official” in the eyes of the law? Laws meant very little to either of them. The law had never been on their side to begin with, why should it be now?

“I mean, it's not even my real last name...” Kaz was just rambling now. He really was no good at these types of conversations. But he had just given Inej her mother's wedding ring and now she was wearing it and he felt giddy and stupid and he was in love.

“Can... can I kiss you?” He asked hesitantly, feeling braver than he had ever felt before.

Inej smiled and leaned forward into him. “I think you'd better.”

END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this chapter is from the maestro himself (as LB has said she played this album on loop while she wrote Six of Crows), Ludovico Einaudi's “Waterways.” If you choose to listen to any of the songs I've added after chapters, trust me, this is the one you want. Put it on, think of every good Kanej scene from the books and you'll cry your face off. This song is what soft smiles from a sunny windowsill and heartbeats sound like. It gets me every time.
> 
> ...also I realized this is the SECOND ~kind of proposal but not really~ story I've written. The first one was kind of more for lulz though. 
> 
> Anyway, that's all for this one. Thank you for following along with the first multi-chapter fic I've written in oh, at least 12 years. O.O I have like, 3 more fics lined up for posting because my hyperfixation will not die. So uhhhh stick around for more soon, if you like. :D

**Author's Note:**

> Ohmygod I'm actually writing a multi-chapter fic, shocking. It's going to be 5 short-ish chapters.
> 
> I'm also going to drop songs for each chapter that I think go along with them and because my SoC playlist is massive. So this chapter gets “Meeting Again” by Max Richter.


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